


Message in a Bottle

by zennie



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, F/F, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-06
Updated: 2017-02-06
Packaged: 2018-09-22 11:20:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,183
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9605603
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zennie/pseuds/zennie
Summary: Based on possible spoilers for Supergirl 2x11.Maggie gets a voicemail from Alex as the DEO goes into lockdown.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Maggie's perspective on a little post I did on Tumblr of just the voicemail.
> 
> As always, thanks Boxer for beta'ing.

“Well, that was a waste of time,” Maggie remarked to Detective Trent as they left the prison secure area and went to collect their belongings. 

“Yeah,” Trent agreed. “Not that an hour-long drive in your company isn’t always a pleasure, Sawyer, but I could have used the time to get caught up on paperwork.” Trent’s subtle flirting had Maggie rolling her eyes. The other woman was happily married, to a man no less, but she insisted it was just her way of making the world a better place. Karma, and all that, she said with a wink and a smile.

Maggie grabbed her messenger bag and weapon from the counter, sliding her service pistol into the holster as she dug her phone out and thumbed the lock screen. One missed call and one voice mail from one Alex Danvers, and she brushed off Trent’s good-natured ribbing about her girlfriend. It was early for Alex to call to cancel, but Maggie was already resigning herself to lunch alone if she couldn’t convince Trent to grab something with her as they drove back into National City. 

Still, she knew she had a goofy grin when her girlfriend’s voice filled her ear, if the exasperated look on Trent’s face was any indication. 

_ Hey Maggie, it’s Alex. Look, I know we have plans for lunch today, but something’s come up and I have to take a rain check.  _

Disappointment was tempered by the fact that she had done the same to Alex just as often, but then Alex’s tone changed, getting a little more serious as she continued, and Maggie picked up on a strange tension. 

_ We’re on lockdown to keep an alien from escaping into the populace. Standard protocol while we re-capture it.  _

A long exhalation from the other end betrayed the fact that this was not, in fact, standard, and Maggie felt her heart drop to her stomach as Alex’s recorded voice spoke again after a pause. 

_ Look, I… Kara has this thing where, when missions get a little hairy, she doesn’t, she doesn’t like to leave things unsaid, you know? When her planet exploded, she just didn’t get a chance to say… things…  _

“You okay?” Trent’s hand was on Maggie’s arm, and Maggie shushed her with her hand, listening with all her might to the voice on the other end. 

_ Anyway, I just wanted you to know the last few weeks have been the happiest in my life. I think I fall a little more for you every day. And I know, I know, this is way too soon and it’s going to scare you and I’m going to send you running for the hills, but… I… I love you… I need you to know if, if…  _

Maggie’s knees gave, and if Trent hadn’t tightened her grip, Maggie would have collapsed to the dirty floor. Maggie heard a deep sigh, and she could almost see Alex running her hand through her hair in irritation as she stumbled over her words. 

_I just didn’t want to leave that unsaid._

Alex’s voice suddenly turned upbeat and self-conscious, almost embarrassed, and she gave a nervous laugh.

_ And you know, Kara has done this to me about a million times and everything is always okay and I’m going to regret this because I’ll have worried you and scared you away for nothing. I should probably have Winn delete this so…  _

A distant voice sounded, and suddenly the noise from the other end was muffled and indistinct as a hand was pressed over the handset. When Alex came back on the line, her words were shot through with regret.

_ I have to go. I’ll see you soon, Sawyer._

Click.

Maggie’s hand came up to cover her mouth as she lowered her phone, staring at the screen blankly. Almost an hour ago. The call must have come in just minutes after she had handed it over to the guard. One hour. Her eyes squeezed shut. Alex loved her. Alex thought she was going to die. 

“Sawyer?”

Breathing through the fear shaking her to the core, Maggie looked at Trent without seeing her. “I, I have to make a call.” The heat of the desert air hit Maggie like a blow, and the sunlight blinded her as she stumbled out the door. She barely noticed the guards opening gate after gate or Trent behind her as she tried to stay upright on numb legs. 

The last gate clanged shut behind her as they reached the parking lot, and she leaned against the door of the standard police-issue sedan as she punched the callback button, ignoring the heat burning through her jeans as she willed Alex to pick up. 

It rang a long time before her call went to voicemail, the impersonal command to leave a message a knife thrust in her gut. She had no words so she simply let it record the wind blowing over the hills until she hung up.

“Come on, let’s get back to the city,” Trent said gently, guiding Maggie into the passenger seat. The oven-blast of heat from the car did nothing to thaw the cold lump of fear that had taken up residence in her stomach, and it barely registered to Maggie as Trent peeled out of the parking lot and hit the lights and sirens, gunning down the road toward National City.

\---

Every call Maggie made went to voicemail, and every time, her mind came up with new images of Alex, trapped, injured, dead, and her fear ratcheted higher. By the time they hit the city limits, Maggie’s knuckles were white and her hand ached from gripping her phone. Trent eased off the gas and flipped the sirens off as they neared the random skyscraper that held the DEO offices. Everything seemed normal, but then, Maggie didn’t expected a smoking crater where the building had once stood. They did their work discreetly at the DEO.

Trent made it clear she wasn’t happy about leaving Maggie in the parking garage alone, but Maggie was insistent. She couldn’t exactly take the other detective with her into a secret government facility that not even most cops knew about. 

Circling the second floor, she headed for a small, nondescript security office where a guard pretended to sleep. It was a hidden backdoor to the direct freight elevator to the DEO floors. She used it from time-to-time to visit Alex after hours, and once, she’d taken the ride up on a gurney. “Hey,” she greeted the guard behind the desk, whose crisp military haircut and sharp eyes belied his impersonation of a rent-a-cop. 

“Detective Sawyer,” he replied. They all seemed to know who she was, and Maggie wondered if there was a picture of her taped behind the high desk with some kind of scrawled instructions from Alex. 

“I, ah, need to see Agent Danvers.”

“No admittance for civilians today.”

Maggie sighed in frustration, knowing he was probably just following protocol. “I know about the lockdown. I need to contact Agent Danvers.” His expression softened slightly, his face showing his own apprehension. “I need to know she’s okay.”

“Comms are down, and the elevator is locked on this floor until someone upstairs lifts the lockdown. I’m sorry, Detective. There no way to reach her. Or anyone, for that matter.”

All the fear and nerves that had been holding her up from the moment she had heard Alex’s voice left in a rush, and she slumped back against the wall, tears burning the corners of her eyes, tears she refused to let fall. It had been over two hours since Alex had called, and all of her effort had been fixed on getting here. Now she was here, and Alex was so close but still so far away. “Can I wait here?” she asked, prepared to argue, prepared to handcuff herself to the damn desk if she had to. 

There was no need. He nodded, and gestured toward an old, beat-up military surplus chair in the corner behind the desk. “There’s coffee,” he said, and Maggie poured a cup for lack of something better to do. “I’m Matt.” 

“Maggie.”

Static flickered on the monitors, and Matt watched them with a scowl. He wasn’t talkative, for which Maggie was grateful, and she sipped her coffee and waited as the afternoon sun slowly crept across the concrete floor of the parking garage. There wasn’t a photocopy of her driver’s license taped behind the desk, but Maggie saw that, on the one working monitor, every car and person that entered was scanned and processed, names and details flashing on the screen. Of course the DEO would be much more high-tech. 

One hour passed, then two, and Maggie alternated between despair and outright panic. She fought nausea down with every breath, wishing every moment she was at Alex’s side. At least then Maggie would know, at least then she might be able to protect her. The waiting was slowly killing her. She kept calling until her phone battery was dead, and she fidgeted, wishing there was room to pace. But she couldn’t leave. This was the closest she could get to Alex, and she wasn’t leaving until she knew something. 

A monitor blinked, the static replaced for just a second with a vague image of the command center, but it was enough to make them both sit up. Maggie slid from her seat, feeling every vertebrae pop as she craned her neck to get a better view, but the static remained stubbornly in place. 

Matt clicked his earpiece and listened, and Maggie’s heart leapt in her chest. “Yes, ma’am, ready teams are on their way,” Matt’s voice boomed out in the small space. Monitors started to come back online, fuzzy with snow, the figures indistinct dark blobs. Finally, Matt turned to Maggie and said, “The elevators are working. You can go up now.” He didn’t say anything about Alex, and Maggie wondered if the omission should worry her. 

The ascent took less than a minute, but after all the hours of waiting, those last seconds were the most painful. All the worst case scenarios Maggie had thought up flashed through her head again, all the images of Alex bloodied or beaten flooded her mind’s eye, and she braced herself as the elevator slowed and a ding sounded above her head. 

The smell of burnt insulation and gunpowder made her gag as the doors opened, but it didn’t stop her as she headed toward the command center at a run, looking frantically for Alex or anyone she recognized. Glass crunched beneath her feet, and Maggie nearly wiped out as she took a corner too fast and slid on something wet. 

“Alex.” The name came out on her breath as she rounded the last corner and skidded to a stop. Dust and grime covered her black uniform, and Alex moved stiffly among the ruins of the center console, an arm wrapped across her ribs. Maggie’s heart thudded in her chest at seeing her girlfriend alive and standing amid the rubble. Supergirl saw Maggie first, catching Alex’s shoulder and directing her attention toward Maggie with a small smile. 

For a second, Maggie was rooted to the spot. Alex had a nasty bruise on her cheek, and she limped as she took a couple of steps in Maggie’s direction. Then Maggie crossed the space between them in three steps to sweep Alex into a tight hug, easing her grip immediately when Alex hissed in pain. “Sorry, I just…”

Maggie released her hold around Alex’s waist, but Alex wrapped her arm around Maggie’s shoulders and pulled her back in, and Maggie returned the hug, a little more carefully this time. “It’s okay,” Alex said, her hand rubbing small circles in the small of Maggie’s back. 

Relaxing into the embrace, Maggie breathed deeply, taking in a lungful of the coconut and citrus scent that was all Alex, and let that wash the fears away. “I was so worried. I tried calling…”

“My phone got smashed,” Alex explained apologetically. “In the fight.” She sucked in a deep breath, her body tensing in Maggie’s arms. “I’m sorry I scared you…”

“You’re okay, that’s all that matters,” Maggie muttered against her shoulder, her fingers gripping the fabric of Alex’s shirt. “I thought… it sounded like you were saying goodbye…”

“About that voicemail… I, I shouldn’t have…”

Maggie cut off Alex by dragging her head down and capturing her lips in deep kiss, not caring who saw. She would apologize to Alex later for making a scene. When their lips parted, Maggie searched Alex’s dark eyes for a moment, seeing apprehension and a hint of regret in those depths, before whispering, “I love you too, Danvers.”

Alex blinked, once, twice, before a charmed, dopey grin spread across her face and lit her eyes. “Yeah?”

Maggie laughed, her smile wide as she nodded her head. “Yeah. Now let’s get you looked at by the medics. You look like you got roughed up by an alien or something.”

“In a minute,” Alex mumbled as her fingers outlined Maggie’s cheekbones, her lips smiling into another kiss.

**Author's Note:**

> I can also be found on Tumblr: https://www.tumblr.com/blog/zennie-fic


End file.
